The EmeraldVerse Victors
by goldie031
Summary: The Hunger Games: the hallmark institution of Panem. Hundreds and hundreds of children have entered the Games; fewer than 200 have emerged, almost none of them unscathed. Here is the story of how the Games came to be, and those who shaped them into what they became.


The First Rebellion was over. The Districts had lost. Thirteen had retreated into hiding. The fifteen highest-ranking rebels were in Capitol custody. And there was one big question on Panem's mind.

Now what?

It was obvious to everyone that there was a punishment coming. To do anything else would open the door for violent rebellion as a means to achieve change and indicate to the Capitol citizens that there really was no point to the war that just tore the country apart. But there was a tremendous amount of debate among the members of Menaeus Snow's Advisory Council as to who would be punished and what that punishment should look like.

"We need to be cautious with this punishment," asserted Gloriana, the most liberal of Snow's advisors. While not exactly a rebel sympathizer, she understood that the changes President Snow were making to Panem were somewhat scary for those who weren't privy to the behind-the-scenes conversations about why those changes were necessary. "The harsher we are on the rebels, the madder they'll be at us and the more likely another rebellion will pop up in the near-ish future."

"I disagree," Diana, one of Snow's longest-sitting advisors, choked out through the tears that had been flowing out of her eyes for weeks. "I think that we should level the harshest possible punishment we can on the districts. They have torn hundreds of Capitol families apart because of their actions. The districts should be forced to have their children torn away from them just as our children were torn away from us." All seven of Diana's children were killed in the rebellion.

"What if we do a harsher punishment that slowly gets more lenient over time?" suggested Belisarius, who fell somewhere right of center. "That way the districts can understand the severity of their actions without implying that they are incapable of learning from their mistakes. Once they learn, there is no reason to continue to punish them."

"And what if they never learn?" asked a fourth advisor, Diamonique, who was a center-left figure.

"Then the punishment never lessens. If they know that behaving better will lead to a lesser punishment, and they don't behave better, there's nothing we can do."

"I just don't like the idea of punishing everyone in the districts!" Gloriana exclaimed. "Not everyone was a rebel. Why should everyone be punished?"

"Because how do you exactly filter out who was a rebel and who wasn't?" Belisarius asked. "People are going to lie, people are going to destroy documentation on who was or wasn't a rebel, and it's just gonna be way more complicated and take way more resources than it's worth. Plus, the argument can easily be made that by not standing up against the rebels, one was complacent with the rebels."

"But if the rebels took over violently, how can you assert that anyone was complacent? There's a difference between agreeing with an ideology and wanting to protect your life and the life of your family."

"Nobody was at all concerned with protecting families," Diana scoffed. "Otherwise, why would they bomb residential areas of the Capitol?"

"Your family does not live in a residential area of the Capitol!" Gloriana exploded at Diana. "You live in the government sector. You knew the rebels were moving towards the Capitol and that they would target the seat of government, and you did not move your family. And don't tell me you did not have the means to move them. I know that you make more money than I do and that none of your kids had visible disabilities."

"And you don't understand what it's like to choose to move away from the place where you last saw both your mother and your father."

Before things could escalate further between the two of them, as often happened between the president's two advisors with the greatest difference of opinion on seemingly everything, President Snow spoke up. "Gloriana. Diana. Stand down. We can not let personal experiences influence our decision here. You both have had difficult pasts for different reasons, but we need to focus on what is best for our future. And I don't think we're going to make any more progress on this matter in this forum. As you know, my decision on this matter is final, and I think I have heard almost all I need to hear. This Advisory Council meeting is adjourned. Everyone is dismissed except for Caius."

The other four councilmembers left the room, leaving the center-most councilmember, Caius Clay, behind with the president. Caius had been acting as one of Snow's advisors since Menaeus became president and was one of three people in all of Panem that Menaeus Snow completely trusted. President Snow beckoned to Caius, who moved his chair to sit directly across from the president.

Snow held out a folder to Caius. "The four proposals for punishment that the other councilmembers offered up. Take a look at them and tell me what you think."

Caius took the folder from Menaeus and skimmed through the four documents it contained. "Well, I think we have a spectrum from Gloriana's, which is basically a slap on the wrist, to Diana's. Belisarius's and Diamonique's fall somewhere in between."

"What do you think of Diana's, honestly?"

"I think it is rather harsh and could decimate the Panemian population. Executing seven children from each district twice a year? That's kind of insane."

"It's more than that; it's totally insane and a way for her to push her pain onto the rest of the population. I can't bear to think about causing that much pain for that many people."

"You're right; under normal circumstances I would never consider it. But these are far from normal circumstances, even for a rebellion. And you and I both know that keeping the Districts' focus on hating the Capitol may be in our best interest."

Snow nodded gravely. "Because if we can be situate ourselves effectively enough as the enemy, the district citizens will spend so much time hating us that they won't have the energy to be swayed to follow whatever is out there."

"Precisely."

The rebellion that had just rocked Panem had come on incredibly suddenly. Capitol intelligence operatives across the districts had all asserted that, a year before the Rebellion took off, there was not even a murmur of significant rebellion throughout the districts. And then, in the census taken six months before the Rebellion, nearly every district saw a significant population increase, with adults appearing that had never been recorded on prior censuses. While it was certainly possible that the rebellion sprouted up naturally, it didn't take an intelligence official to realize that, more likely than not, some external force had planted the seeds of rebellion and caused them to sprout really, really fast. And the idea that there was an outside force powerful enough to turn the whole country against Snow and his government was petrifying. It was likely only a matter of time before they tore the country apart.

"Well, if we kill fourteen children a year it's a surefire way to kill any possible population growth. I won't stand for that. And I also feel apprehensive about doing something where there is no chance of coming out of it alive. Everyone should always have a little bit of hope. Which is where Diamonique's proposal becomes interesting to me. She suggested placing the 24 highest-ranking rebels in some sort of reality competition or Arena and forcing them to vote who should be executed when."

"So you're saying we combine them somehow?"

After some discussion, Caius and Snow had nailed down a preliminary structure for what would later be termed the Hunger Games. One male and female child between the ages of twelve and eighteen – "Because any younger would be too cruel," asserted the president – would be selected as tributes to compete in a fight to the death, where the last living child would be declared the Victor and get to live a life of luxury beyond the imagination of anyone in the districts. Caius would be responsible for figuring out how the Games would work and creating the Arena in which those tributes would fight, while Snow would be responsible for facilitating the selection of tributes in each district. "No question in my mind, the selection of tributes will be mandatory attendance for all who aren't sick or dying. We need to be able to keep tabs on the district population and know who is where."

"So I take it you'll also be closing off inter-district travel?"

Snow paused. "That's a very good idea. Let me make a note of that and I'll make sure to include that in the treaty we sign with the rebels." Snow thought for a moment. "Now, when does this punishment end?"

"I think that depends on how long the Capitol needs to be the enemy, and how much of the enemy it needs to be. If the threat of whoever instigated the rebellion is gone, this can be a short punishment. If it stays the same, things remain the same. And if it gets worse, well… I think we have to make things even worse. The angrier that the districts are at us and the more we make ourselves their focus, the less time and energy they'll have to focus on whatever this other force is."

"That does make sense. But how do we make them even angrier at the Capitol? I'm not ripping more children away from their families."

"I mean, being a crueler president would do it."

"But there are limits to how far I'm willing to go."

"Well, you saw how poorly Diana is doing right now. Imagine if something similar were to happen to Coriolanus."

"So you're saying that, to keep the country safe from this threat, I would have to die?"

"Not necessarily. It is easy enough to fake the death of you and the rest of your family at the hands of the districts and send you into hiding somewhere. You know the options we have for that. If we execute this fake death when Cory is around fifteen, and you shower him with love before then, when you die, it will probably break his heart and make him even crueler to the districts."

Menaeus looked at a small screen on his desk that displayed an image of his young son asleep in his room. "That's a lot of pressure to put on such a little boy, especially one who loves so passionately and is so devastated when he can't find what he wants."

"But it could be what the country needs to stay together and stay safe."

"I hope it doesn't come to that. And if it does, I hope that, someday, a president comes along who can loosen the tight grip that Coriolanus will inevitably have on the country."

The two fell silent for a moment. Caius broke the silence, asking, "How are you feeling, with all of this?"

"I don't know," Snow replied. "I feel like I'm in a situation where there is no one right solution, and that anything I choose will undoubtedly cause large chunks of people to be mad at me, especially because there is so little of my true reasoning that I can share with the country. And I'm sad that I'm choosing to paint myself as a tyrant because it's what I believe is the best for the country, especially because I can never know if I'm making the right decision."

"Yeah. That's hard." Caius was not the therapist type.

Snow took a big, deep breath, then sat up as straight as he could, trying his best to feign the confidence that he so desperately needed to have even a chance of success. "But we have no other choice. Caius, please begin to draft a document explaining the punishment to the rebels. I want things settled by the end of the week."

Caius nodded solemnly. "Let the Hunger Games begin."

* * *

**Yep, I'm jumping on the Victors' Chronicles bandwagon! This story is very much going to be a side project of side projects, which is to say that I needed this chapter up for Reasons but it's not going to be my priority story by any means. As I get ideas for these Victors and time to write I'll work on this, and I expect that as we get closer to the IDIDE present things will speed up because those Victors are more fleshed out. I'm also not setting any kind of word count minimum for myself for this story; whatever flows out and makes sense to me is what I'm going to go with. And we may see some Victors combined into one chapter to speed things along a bit if they relate in some way.**

**Anyway, it's not a Goldie story without some questions at the end, so here goes! What did you think about this Snow and his reasoning for starting the Games? Does it humanize the Snows we know too much? Is his logic valid, or is there a better way to keep the districts from straying too far away? And what could be the external force that is scaring Snow so much?**

**With this backdrop in mind, I'm excited to begin to explore the origin of the Games and how the different presidents handle this anonymous looming intangible threat. The most fun thing about these stories is getting to explore how the Games really get their start and develop into the form of entertainment they become, and hoo boy do I have plans. As Caius said, let the Games begin!**

**See you soon,**

**Goldie031**


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